Temples, temples and more temples!

Well, Thanksgiving is over for all of us, EWO spent the last two days at the Angkor Temples, and we found two more Temple Kids. Friday morning we headed to the famous Ta Prohm, the temple used in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie. It's a very good example of how invasive the jungle can be.

At Ta Prohm we found Kao, who is 12. He has three brothers and two sisters, and most of them sell at the temples. Kao spoke very good English, and by the time we were halfway through the temple, we had collected four of his friends. We had a lot of fun with them! They took us the back ways and through the side doors to get the best view for good pictures.

The temples are so amazing, but it's very hard to deal with all the tourists. Most of the temples are crawling with people, and more and more busses pull up all the time. The tough part is that tourism is the number one industry in Siem Reap, and even throughout Cambodia. Tourism provides many jobs and opportunities that weren't available before, but many of the hotels are foreign-owned, so the bulk of the money still leaves the country.

After a great morning with Kao and his friends at Ta Prohm and others, we relaxed in the pool and headed out for dinner. We went to a local restaurant that employs many poor Cambodians, recommeded by Soum. We were the only foreigners in the restaurant, and it was very good! We tried LK Internet and a few others, but the Internet was down so we headed back to home base.
Saturday arrived early, and we headed off for the "Big Circuit" as it's known. We drove through Angkor Thom city again and headed to Preah Khan, where we found Sohkan, who is 15. She is one of six children, and almost all of them sell at the temples. We headed out with Kan, a friend and her 3-year-old sister, and started exploring.

Preah Khan is huge, and once housed over 1000 monks as a Buddhist monastery and school. There are many rooms, hallways, corridors, and doorways to explore, and Kan found all of them! She and her friend climbed mounds of rocks to find good views that no one else would see. She didn't speak much English, but Soum stayed with us to help.

After relaxing in the pool in the afternoon, we headed to Khmer Taste for dinner, and then to the opening reception and exhibition for the Angkor Photography Festival. There were some famous and talented photographers there, and we met a few of them. This is going to be such a great opportunity to network, to get EWO out in the world and connect with people doing similar work in SE Asia. It was a great evening!

The biggest news for EWO, other than our three Temple Kids and the reception, is that we were able to repair the bridge for Ly and her family! We had asked Soum where we could find wood, nails, and anything else we would need, and he came through. On Friday after he dropped us off at the hotel early afternoon, Soum and his Grandfather fixed the bridge. It was a huge surprise to us that he was going to do the work, and it was also a surprise to Ly, Lourm and their family!

Please keep checking back and leaving messages and emails. We are having a great time, and we really feel like we're doing great things. This trip gives much meaning to a day of Thanksgiving. Miss you all!